Children of Allah: Between the Sea and Sahara

by Agnes Newton Keith

This is the story of a compassionate, intelligent American woman and of how she was drawn to the people of Libya, the citizens of a rugged new Arab state ravaged by war, caught between sea and Sahara and struggling to catch up with the modern world.
For nine years (1955-1964) Agnes Newton Keith lived in Libya where her forester husband, Harry Keith, was chief of the FAO Mission of the United Nations. It was his responsibility to find young Libyans who could be trained to replant forests, revitalize oases and extend irrigation. Children of Alla is alive with the people of Libya--the secluded Moslem women of whom only the more cosmopolitan have discarded the veil, the arrogant Libyan men, brusque yet gentle, kind, unscrupulous and bull-headed; and the endearing children, underprivileged and too often underfed. Because of her sympathy and understanding, Mrs. Keith was admitted to homes and to confidences which a foreigner rarely enjoys.
She also accompanied her husband on his field trips into the Sahara and she writes of the Roman ruins there which are still being bared by destructive winds, the ancient rock pictures and mirages, and the driving sandstorms. Here she came to know the nomad Tuareg, descendants of great warriors, who disdain work and now live in tattered black tents, their eyes dimmed by trachoma. Here she saw oil fields and speculates on what the new wealth will mean to Libya.
This, then, is the story of a land where every drought, disaster and good fortune is accepted as the will of Allah. Out of her experiences and out of her friendships come Mrs. Keith's vivid personal account of an ancient people struggling for a new unity and self-possession under a wise old king.

Genres: Libya

467 pages, hardcover

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Agnes Keith was born in 1901 in Illinois but grew up in Hollywood long before "Tinsel Town" became what it is today. In 1934 she married Henry ("Harry") George Keith, an Englishman whom she had first met as a childhood friend of her brother. Harry was on leave from Sandakan where he had lived since 1925 and where he served as Conservator of Forests, Director of Agriculture, and Curator of the Museum for the government of British North Borneo. Sandakan then was the capital of North Borneo, a territory that was an anomaly, governed by a company, the British North Borneo Chartered Company. Agnes accompanied Harry back to Sandakan where she was introduced to the life of a 'memsahib' in an isolated British colonial community in an exotic land. Over the next five years, Agnes documented her observations and experiences in a highly personal series of articles that were published in her first book "Land Below the Wind" that won the Atlantic Monthly annual prize for non-fiction in 1939. Agnes writes with sensitivity and humour, capturing the essence of colonial life from the perspective of an American expat and describing the local people - Chinese, Murut, and Malay - with affection and sympathy. As the book draws to a close and the Keiths prepare to leave Sandakan on home leave after five years, the ominous clouds of war are looming, illustrated by an accidental encounter between the young daughter of the Chinese consul, a neighbor of the Keiths, and the Japanese consul and his wife who are guests for tea at the Keith house. After their leave, the Keiths returned to Sandakan where their son George was born. Soon they were engulfed by war and the family of three was interned with the small British community, first in a camp on Pulau Berhala off Sandakan and then at the notorious Batu Lintang camp near Kuching, Sarawak, where Agnes and little George were separated from Harry until the war ended and liberation came in 1945. All through their captivity Agnes secretly kept notes of their horrific experience that were published after the war in her second book "Three Came Home" (made into a film in 1950 starring Claudette Colbert). Agnes, Harry, and George returned to Sandakan after the war and rebuilt their house that had been destroyed in the war. Their subsequent years in North Borneo were the subject of Agnes's third book, "White Man Returns.".

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good book to read about the people of Libya prior to Ghadafi. It really shows the Libyan people in a much better light than recent events have portrayed.

[Lillian King · Rating 5 out of 5]

So amazing. Libyans heart and soul seen through the eyes of an American woman in the 1950s. Rare glimpse into a forgotten Middle East

[Sami Elganbur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Agnes Newton Keith
اجنس نيوتن كيث وكتابها الرائع Children of Allah

من اجمل ما قرأت علي المجتمع الليبي فترة الخمسينيات والستينيات والمميز فيه انها اختلطت مع جميع طبقات الليبيين اينما حلت فانسجمت مع الفقراء المعدمين من بدو رحل و سكان الكامبوات حينها وايضا مع علية القوم اعضاء برلمان ووزارات وتعلقت بالجميع .
وصفت في كتابها وصف دقيق للمجتمع وطريقة عيشه ولم تحب المجتمع الاوروبي الغربي كثيرا في طرابلس او بنغازي بل اثرت الاختلاط بالليبيين واحبتهم واحبوها .....
دأبت علي الترحال داخل ليبيا في رحلات خاصة بعمل زوجها زارت فيها معظم مدن وقري ليبيا دون كلل او ملل وكانت قوية الملاحظة دقيقة الوصف فمن غات والقطرون جنوبا الي طبرق والجبل الاخضر مرورا بالجفرة غدامس بني وليد وعلي طول الشريط الساحلي زارت القرية تلو الاخري ...
حضرت المظاهرات ابان حكومة محي الدين فكيني و لها مواقف طريفة وحزينة خلال السنوات التي عاشتها بيننا ..
كتاب جدا قيم وانصح به ....

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Children of Allah, based on the author's experiences living in Libya in the late 1950s and early 1960s, is quite fascinating. Agnes Newton Keith is an excellent writer, very apt at describing in quite the understated way, amazing, horrifying, and everything in-between places and occurrences, in this book and others I've read by her. Three Came Back, comes to mind: her story of living in an Indonesian prison camp with her husband and infant son for the duration of World War II. During her time in Libya, she had the opportunity to travel inland, where even today visitors seldom go. (I, for one, have never heard of anyone traveling to Libya, for any reason!) Her succinct description of the sign - a vestige of the Italian occupation - at the end of a dirt track, which has the word Sahara and an arrow on it. The strange, far inland, trapped-in-time city where women inhabited the upper floors and rooftops, men the lower. The other-worldly underwater ruins along the Libyan coast which her son explored in what must have been Very-Early SCUBA gear. Her teenaged house servant, married at 17, who yearns for living life beyond what he will ever be allowed, the sole support of his wife, children, and blind mother.

[كوثر الجهمي · Rating 5 out of 5]

"لم تُبذل محاولة كبيرة لتعيين وزراء للعمل الذي يفهمونه أو يكون لديهم خبرة فيه، لأن التعيينات عادة ما تكون مكافآت سياسية"

أغنس كيث، في كتابها "أهل الله"، الصادر بالإنجليزية 1965م، تتحدث في هذا الفصل (حيث الاقتباس الموضح ☝️) عن الحكومات ووزرائها منذ العام 1955 وحتى العام 1964م.
لو كان العذر في تلك الأيام حداثة الدولة، فما هو عذر ليبيا بعد أكثر من نصف قرن على استقلالها، كي تُقصى الكفاءات ويحل محلها المكافآت؟
...
انتهيت منه آسفة، فهذا نوع من الكتب تودّ ألا تنتهي منه، وسأبدأ جولة جديدة معه بكل تأكيد، فأنا متعطشة لوجهة النظر المحايدة أيام ليبيا الملكية، مع التحفظ على بعض الأخطاء الواضحة حول الحياة الاجتماعية والدينية لليبيين، التي قد تكون ناتجة عن سوء فهم الكاتبة بصفتها مواطنة أمريكية.

تكفلت دار الفرجاني مشكورة بطباعته ونشره مترجما في نسخة عربية أولى ووحيدة حتى الآن لهذه التحفة التي لا تقل أهمية عن "10 سنوات في بلاط طرابلس"، و"أسرار طرابلس"، بل هي امتداد لهما ولكتب أخرى عديدة توثق للحياة الاجتماعية والوضع السياسي في هذه البلاد بأقاليمها الثلاثة.
يأتي الكتاب بنسخته العربية في ترجمة بديعة وأمينة للأستاذ فرج الترهوني، الذي يحترم فضول القارئ؛ ولم يبخل عليه بالهوامش التوضيحية لبعض ما قد يثير الاستغراب أو الأسئلة.

أنصح بقراءته للمهتمين بتاريخ هذه البلاد، برغم كونه كتابًا أدبيًا، فلا يمكن إهمال الجانب التوثيقي منه.

[Mukbil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Currently reading this book and enjoying it immensely. Keith's interpretations are a little dated, Libya has come a long way since the writing, but nevertheless the book offers a revealing anthropological profile of the Libyan people and their diverse tribal spectrum

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

gOOD INFO BUT A BIT OF A BORE

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I inherited this book from my mother, who was reading it in the first months we lived in Tripoli, Libya, in the late 1960s. It is a fascinating book written from a western perspective on the tradition and customs of the natives of Libya. A treasure this book.